


love is the light scaring darkness away

by Flowerparrish



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Ficlets, M/M, Tumblr drabbles, also including Napoleon the Service Dog, boy that's an old headcanon/heartcanon, brief allusion to self-harm and suicidal thoughts/intentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 05:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16847650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish
Summary: I'm collecting my (two and a half year old) Jerejean drabbles from tumblr <3 throwback to the early days I guess





	1. Bed-Sharing

Jeremy knows from his budding friendship with the foxes that he’s lucky USC lets them fly whenever they leave California, rather than subscribing them to Palmetto’s 800 mile cut-off. But sometimes flying’s even more exhausting when they’re staying in the same district, and watching the coaches talk with the desk because the hotel messed up the booking doesn’t help. They could call other hotels in the area, but no one’s keen on splitting up the team, so instead their coaches convince the hotel to give them what rooms are left to cover their mistake. Jeremy’s never felt so lucky to have such a friendly team as when the Trojans gather around the list of rooms and sort it out among themselves with no infighting and very few frowns. Jean doesn’t fight for a room, still uncomfortable in the middle of the team when they’re crowding somewhere and always more cautious the further they get from USC’s campus. Jeremy doesn’t fight for a room, just accepts the keys Laila hands him and leads Jean to an elevator before the rest are even done, trusting Laila to text him if he misses any important announcements. 

 

He starts to realize that maybe he should have checked when they get to the room and it’s one king bed. Jean’s staring at the bed without an expression, so Jeremy can’t get a read on his feelings. He could go back and negotiate for a different set up, but this was probably the nicest the team could be if it was going to be just two of them to a room with the limited number, and he’s too tired to argue either way. “I’ll sleep on the floor,” Jeremy says, because if he makes the hotel bring up an extra blanket, it’ll be the same as sleeping in the tree house back home. 

 

Jean cuts his gaze to Jeremy, but Jeremy ignores it, dropping his duffel by the wall and bending to unzip it and pull out clothes to sleep in. They already showered after the match, but he’ll change in the bathroom and brush his teeth before bed. 

 

As he stands and makes for the small bathroom, Jean sticks an arm out in front of him. Jeremy rocks to a halt inches away, looking up. “Yeah?”

 

“You can sleep in the bed.”

 

Jeremy frowns. “I’m not making you sleep on the floor.”

 

Jean rolls his eyes; with the force Jean puts behind the movement, Jeremy’s surprised it doesn’t hurt. “It’s only one night,” Jean says slowly, like Jeremy’s being particularly slow. “We can share the bed.”

 

Jeremy glances at the bed, and it is pretty large. They’re used to sleeping in the same room. Contrary to what many of Jeremy’s friends and lovers have assumed, he’s not a serial cuddler, so it’ll probably be fine. If Jean’s giving him the go, he’ll take it. “Alright,” he agrees. “Thanks.”

 

When they trade out the bathroom a few minutes later, Jean’s already folded down the blankets on the side of the bed he wants (unsurprisingly, the side next to the wall rather than the window), so Jeremy sets his phone alarm for six the next morning and crawls under the covers on his end. He’s asleep before Jean gets back.

 

-

 

Everything goes fine. Neither of them has nightmares and wakes the other; neither of them really moves in their sleep. They don’t wake up awkwardly cuddling. It’s fairly similar to their rooming situation in the dorm. 

 

The differences are these:

 

Jeremy wakes first, before his alarm has time to go off, although there’s sunlight creeping in under thick hotel curtains. He rolled at some point in the night and now he’s facing Jean, although still well on his side of the bed. He’s not sure how Jean fell asleep, but Jean is likewise facing him. 

 

Jean’s hand, however, is stretched out over the distance between them, resting just under the blankets no more than three inches away from Jeremy. He would assume that it’s to wake Jean if he moves, but when he rolls a bit to grab his phone off of the table beside the bed and turns back, Jean’s still fast asleep, breathing even, hasn’t even twitched. Jeremy’s seen Jean wake up, although only a few times, when someone or something moves. He’s instantly alert, face tight and breath held. This is the opposite, Jean relaxed. He’s not particularly peaceful; he frowns in his sleep more than he smiles, and the severe pull between his brows never fully eases. But this is an even deeper level of trust than Jeremy had ever expected Jean to give him. 

 

It’s not awkward cuddling or heart-to-heart conversations in the middle of the night. But it’s the closest Jean Moreau could ever get to either of those things, and when Jeremy rolls out of bed a few minutes later, he’s warmed from more than just the blankets. 


	2. Napoleon the Service Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wish I could hate you"

The worst nights are the ones when Jeremy wakes up to Napoleon jumping onto his bed, front paws pressing an unforgiving weight on Jeremy’s stomach until he shoves himself upright. Those are the nights when Jean is awake but not aware, trapped in brutal memories and completely unresponsive. Those nights, even Jean’s psychiatric service dog has to call in reinforcements, and Jeremy is terrified by the responsibility attached to being the person who decides what to do.

 

Most nights, he dresses in silence, pulling on sweats and a Trojans hoodie before turning on every light in the apartment. He boils water for tea and steeps it for the exact right three minutes, placing one cup on the table near the bed or on a patch of floor just out of Jean’s reach, depending on where he curled up before Napoleon sought Jeremy’s help.

 

Tonight Jean’s wedged into the top corner of his bed, back and left side pressed against the wall, right side blanketed by Napoleon’s heavy weight. His knees are pulled up to his chest and his forehead is pressed against them, his left hand tangled in his hair and pulling, his right hand curled around his sheets in a fist.

 

Jeremy takes a seat midway down Jean’s bed, leaning his back against the wall and allowing his legs to dangle over the side of the bed. He pulls up Pandora on his phone and sets it on a channel of instrumental music that he uses for studying, resting his tea against his knees and watching Jean out of the corner of his eye. He sets the phone on the bed between them and keep track of time passing by counting the songs.

 

By the end of three tracks Jean has stopped tugging at his hair, his hand draped loosely over his knees instead, fingers shaking. Jeremy puts his mostly empty mug of still warm tea on the floor and leaves his left hand palm up on the bed near the phone, a silent offer. After another track and a half, Jean’s left hand wraps around Jeremy’s tight enough to cut off his circulation, nails digging crescents into the side of Jeremy’s hand. He doesn’t complain. Two more songs and Jean isn’t pressing his forehead into his knees so hard that it hurts; his head is turned to the side, staring at the floor of their room, and his right hand is buried in Napoleon’s fur to hide the fact that it’s still shaking. His eyes are open and clearer, now, and when Jeremy shifts his legs up to curl up cross-legged, Jean’s eyes dart over to track the movement.

 

When the sun begins to rise, Jeremy switches stations to one of his more regular pop channels, songs meant to wake him up. “I’ll take Napoleon for his run today,” Jeremy says like he always does after a rough night.

 

“Okay,” Jean agrees after a few moments, voice hoarse. He releases Jeremy’s hand, flexes his fingers for a moment, and collects the mug of now-cold tea from beside him. He drinks the cup in careful sips and rests the mug on his knees when it’s empty, hand still wrapped around it with a grip that is so gentle it probably hurts.

 

“You’ll be okay here while I’m gone,” Jeremy says, not a question. It’s a reminder of a promise that they worked out after the first of these nights. Jean won’t move from his spot on the bed for the half hour that Jeremy and Napoleon are gone, because he isn’t okay enough to move around alone yet, but all three of them feel better when some semblance of their routine is maintained.

 

“I wish I could hate you,” Jean snarls after a moment. It’s vicious only because it would hurt Jean to be vulnerable, so Jeremy forces himself to take the remark as a compliment. After all, Jean doesn’t hate him. He only sighs a little as he stands up to collect Napoleon’s leash and hook it into the dog’s collar.

 

“We’ll be back soon,” he promises, and doesn’t look back as he tugs the hesitant dog out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anonymous prompt, March 10, 2016


	3. Hello Kitty Band-Aids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why are you bleeding?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> actual awful but we wanted Jeremy carrying around cute lil kid band aids and being team dad and patching everyone up, and I wanted to knock out another prompt. trigger warnings for (unintentional?) self-harm, mentions of past abuse, thoughts of murder (is that a trigger?? idk??), mental breakdowns, the usual ones for angsty Jean fic tbh. But it has a… pretty… happy… ending??

Living with Jean is… awful. There’s really no other word for it. Jeremy suspects it would be easier if he could hate the other man, or if he cared less about everyone all of the time, because it hurts to watch someone fall apart so frequently and be so useless to do anything about it. It was almost easier in the beginning, when Jean looked through him like he didn’t matter and answered in one word answers, monotone, always bored and dismissive. Jeremy thought things would get easier when Jean relaxed enough to open up, but he should have known better.

 

The sustained trauma of years of abuse is catching up with Jean now that his brain senses that it’s safe enough to cope with it, and Jeremy’s never hated anything in his life, but now he  _hates._ A constant rage burns in his chest, chewing at his focus and his patience, peaking as a blinding, white-hot hatred that’s so violent it leaves him shaking. He’s never felt this strongly before, this negatively. He’s the captain of the Trojans for a reason, and he’s glad they won’t face the Ravens on the court for a handful of months more, because he wouldn’t stop at a red card. He’d probably kill the first Raven that even looked at Jean.

 

More exhausting than the rage that his body wasn’t made to feel is keeping a handle on it at all times. He can’t let Jean see what he’s feeling, because his new teammate won’t be able to distinguish anger for his sake as different from anger aimed at him. The trust between them is shaky at best, but shattering it would be devastating for Jean’s recovery and Jeremy will  _not_ be the reason for that. He won’t.

 

He’s just so  _tired._

 

So when he gets out of class with enough time to nap before dinner and practice, he’s desperately relieved. Less so when he walks through the door to their suite and can  _feel_ that something is off. Looking around to see what’s caught his attention, he finds the TV remote discarded on the floor, not the coffee table or arm of the couch, and there’s a mostly-eaten sandwich on a paper plate on the table instead. No Jean anywhere in sight, and he never once has left anything out of place. Jeremy’s stomach sinks even as his veins tingle with that constant fire and he sets out to search for Jean.

 

He’s easy enough to find—the light in their bathroom is on, the door not completely shut, and Jeremy knocks and waits for a moment. Getting no answer, he pushes inside, and there’s the anger right on cue. He stuffs it down in his chest, swallowing it like bile, and crosses the floor to kneel across from Jean. Jean’s curled up in a corner against the edge of the shower, strands of his hair tugged out and looped around his fingers, which are now digging into his cheeks as his frame shakes with silent sobs.

 

“Jean.” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t make any indication that he’s heard Jeremy. It’s not surprising but it’s also not good, because Jeremy can’t touch him to bring him back. Instead, he goes to the kitchen and pours a class of orange juice, stops and grabs his backpack and brings it all back into the bathroom. Settling down on the cold linoleum, back against the cupboards, he puts the juice down next to Jean. He’ll see it if he opens his eyes and he’ll smell it if he takes a deep enough breath, and maybe it’ll ground him a little. Until then, he pulls out his current book for lit class and starts reading it out loud, pausing to add in his comments when the characters do anything particularly stupid or centuries dead authors use unnecessarily complicated sentences to get their point across, and watches Jean slowly relax over time. It’s not until Jean looks up, eyes blinking repeatedly like that haven’t focused back on his actual surroundings quite yet, that Jeremy actually notices the blood on his face. “Why are you bleeding?”

 

Jean swipes at his cheek and stares down at the blood on the back of his hand. He jerks his shoulders up in a shrug. Gestures with the bloody hand at his right cheek. “Wanted it gone.” Even the three words look like they cost him effort. He carefully picks up the glass, hands too shaky to properly hold it, but he gets most of the juice in his mouth and carelessly wipes off his chin with his shirt.

 

On days like this, Jeremy actually wishes Riko wasn’t already dead, because Jeremy would like to kill Riko himself. He doesn’t know anything specific, because Jean doesn’t talk after breakdowns and doesn’t talk about anything important any other time, and Kevin tells him through omission more than honesty what went on in their shared past. Jeremy doesn’t need to know details. This is enough to make him want to kill.

 

But Jean needs gentleness after a life full of violence, even if violence is probably easier for him to process and handle, and Jeremy will force himself to be strong for as long as it takes. He reaches up to run the tap and wet a cloth, gesturing at Jeremy’s face. “Can you clean off the blood, or do you want me to do it?”

 

After a few moments, Jean jerks his chin at Jeremy in one quick nod, an offer. Jeremy is careful, hesitant to cause more pain, but Jean doesn’t look like he even feels it. He only blinks back to something resembling life when Jeremy is done, pulling his collection of band aids in a gallon size plastic bag out of the side pocket of his bag. “Hello Kitty or Spongebob?”

 

“What?”

 

Jeremy shrugs. “Hello Kitty goes better with your complexion,” he decides inanely. Peeling a few out of the wrappers, he dabs them with Neosporin just in case there was any dirt under Jean’s fingernails and smooths them across Jean’s face. The pink band aids neatly cover the tattoo, and Jeremy smiles a bit. It’s not the right way to go about things, but maybe band aids can be a temporary fix for a permanent problem. He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture rather than making Jean stand to look in the mirror. “See?”

 

Jean looks down at the phone for a long time, long enough that his hands stop shaking and his breathing returns to normal. When he hands the phone back, he’s his usual self again, the self-assured asshole that the Trojans know too well. Only the band aids and puffy pink around his eyes show that anything is different from any other day. “Merci,” he says quietly. Then he pushes himself to his feet, picking up the glass and leaving Jeremy behind on the bathroom floor.

 

The anger in his veins has quieted to an ache rather than a scorching heat. Jeremy can make a difference; he isn’t useless. And in a few months, they’ll trounce the Ravens on the court no matter what it takes, hurting them in the only way they can be hurt. When Jeremy leads their team to first place this year, he won’t be doing it for the right reasons, for the love of them game and a shared victory. He’ll be doing it to avenge one person—but that’s another kind of love, after all. It’s nothing more than a band aid to briefly cover up all that Jean has suffered, but Jeremy has loads of band aids and loads of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for Shannon (@sourpastels), originally posted on March 14, 2016


	4. Skirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremy loses a bet to Renee and the Foxes

“What the hell are you wearing?”

 

Jeremy looks up from where he’s rooting through a pile of clothes on his bed and grins at Jean. “Hey! Your class is out already?”

 

Jean folds his arms and leans against the doorway, eyeing Jeremy and trying to figure out some explanation for—this. “What are you wearing?” he repeats, more slowly this time. He eyes Jeremy up and down, and, no, it’s not getting any better. The mess of colors and patterns adorning the clothes that are very clearly not his is more than an eyesore; Jean’s pretty sure he’s already got a headache, and he hasn’t even been here a full minute.

 

“I lost a bet to Renee,” Jeremy says, shrugging and going back to digging through the mess on his bed. “So I borrowed some stuff from Sara and Laila.”

 

Jean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath for patience, because the Foxes’ obsessive gambling does actually explain this somewhat. “Why are you making bets with Renee?”

 

“Well, with all of the Foxes,” Jeremy adds, as if that helps. It doesn’t.

 

“They are bad influences,” Jean tells him, speaking carefully to make sure he doesn’t revert to French in his ire. “Explain.”

 

He can see Jeremy rolling his eyes, but he turns to face Jean, smiling like Jean’s the one being ridiculous here. “I lost a bet to Renee, and she wants a picture of me in a skirt or dress for Kevin’s birthday.”

 

That makes more sense, although it makes a confusing swell of both giddy laughter and sharp annoyance rise in Jean’s chest. He’s pretty sure his facial expression settles on a grimace when it can’t decide how to contort his features; that’s probably for the best.

 

“It’s already the end of January,” he points out. “What would she have given him if you had won the bet?”

 

Jeremy shrugs. “A regular picture of me, probably.”

 

He’s still flushed faintly like he always is when someone brings up Kevin’s hero-worship of him, because despite captaining the best team in the NCAA, Jeremy somehow doesn’t understand why anyone would admire him. It’s annoying, and absolutely not at all endearing in any way.

 

Jean sighs and steps forward to tug at the clothes that hang all wrong on Jeremy’s frame. He’s too tall and broad, and he’s probably going to ruin even Alvarez’s crop tops at this rate. “None of these match,” he tells Jeremy. “This is the worst mess of color I have ever seen, and I have seen your closet.”

 

Jeremy sticks out his tongue at Jean to hide his smile (unsuccessfully). “As if you would know,” he accuses. “All you wear is black. We have to hide your clothes and replace them to make you wear anything else.”

 

“I always dress impeccably,” Jean tells him, and it’s a lie, but that’s beside the point. He quickly roots through the clothes on the bed, selects some that are less awful and much more complimentary, and shoves them at Jeremy’s chest. “Here. Stop making bets with Renee.”

 

He shoves his way out of the room and tries to ignore it when his phone beeps with a text from Renee three hours later. He’s holed up in the library now, since his room is clearly too hazardous to his focus and he needs to do his work. But he can’t resist opening the text, and once he sees it he gives up on homework for the rest of the night.

 

He doesn’t have fantasies about blowing Jeremy in a skirt. At least, he didn’t until now.

 

Luckily, his boyfriend is more than willing to fulfill his fantasies, and Jean can shut up his annoying laughter quick enough that it doesn’t even ruin the experience. Jeremy is also more than willing to return the favor. It’s enough that Jean doesn’t ban Renee from making bets with his boyfriend, but he won’t give her the satisfaction of thanking her for the forwarded text. (He saves the image to his phone anyway. He’s only human.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for Shannon (@sourpastels), originally posted on March 8, 2016


	5. Facing Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can I kiss you?"

Winning championships Jeremy’s fourth year is fantastic, their first year with Jean on their team, Jeremy able to  _prove_ to him that the Trojans are worth his time, that they’re the  _best_ team in the NCAA, that Riko’s abusive method of captaining isn’t the only way to the top—that love and respect and camaraderie can get you there to, if you let them.

 

Losing championships Jeremy’s fifth year isn’t better than that, necessarily, but it’s equally fantastic. They face the Foxes again in that match, after the Foxes beat Penn State for the first time and USC beat the Ravens  _again._ That’s the game that’s the pinnacle of Jeremy’s college exy career, and it isn’t even for his own sake, but for Jean’s.

 

They face the Ravens at Castle Evermore; it takes all of Jeremy’s self-control not to punch a wall when they find out, and mainly that’s because he can’t afford to make this about him when he needs to spend the next week holding Jean together so that Jean can’t tear himself apart. Laila and Jeremy don’t even allow Jean into the away room before they and the rest of the team can deck it in the Trojan’s scarlet, a brighter and more lively hue that Raven red, and gold—bags, shirts, streamers, anything they could stuff into the extra spaces in their duffels of gear that could cut down on this crushing darkness. Alvarez keeps Jean occupied watching her back outside, citing the need to smoke a rare cigarette before such a stressful game and telling Jean that she doesn’t want to stand out on Raven territory alone. Jean knows what they’re doing, but it’s not like he was ever going to tell her no.

 

Their win is inevitable. The Ravens are a broken team right now, almost as broken as the Foxes in their first three years in the NCAA, with the upperclassmen fighting the dismantling of Moriyama’s psychologically abusive system and the newer two years of recruits torn between their team, their coach, the bad press and the rumors. That’s not why the Trojans will win at any cost, though; they will win because Jean is theirs, now, a part of a team that is friendship and fraternity instead of a fearful hive mind, and these people hurt Jean. The Trojans won’t allow that to pass.

 

All four of their coaches know this, Rhemann in particular. He warns them not to get any red cards on pain of sitting out for the entirety of the next season, but he pulls Jeremy aside and tells him that he won’t resent him if he gets two yellow cards, so long as he doesn’t make himself the Trojans’ most infamous captain by earning the team their first red. Jeremy does get one yellow card early in the game, skirting the line between yellow and red for punching a fifth year Raven for harassing Jean with an incessant litany of insults in  _French._ Jeremy’s fight with her is rough and dirty, but she gives as good as she gets and the referees look more annoyed than angry when they give them yellow cards and pass the ball off to the Ravens when they restart play.

 

Jeremy keeps himself in check, though, for the rest of the match, because he’s playing this full game—he won’t leave Jean on the court without him. Jean in Raven territory is a self-contained entity, cold and severe and unforgiving as a marble statue (and just as lovely, not that such things matter at times like this). Jeremy isn’t sure that, even with all of the progress that Jean has made, Jean can trust anyone else to have his back at a time like that, but Jeremy will stay here and guard Jean’s back all the same.

 

They win five points ahead, and Jeremy scores a goal in the last five seconds of the game off of a pass from Jean. It’s a toss that he throws over his shoulder, the ball rebounding off of the wall up by the ceiling and passing the dealers’ reaching racquets entirely, bouncing off the ground between them and the strikers and neatly into Jeremy’s own racquet’s net in a clean scoop. It’s a ridiculous move, one they’d practiced mostly for fun, just to see if they could do it, on nights when neither of them could sleep and there was no peace to be found anywhere except on the court. Even their own team looks stunned and amazed as the buzzer sounds out twice in rapid succession, their score and the end of the game back to back. Jean ignores the Trojans and the Ravens alike, removing his helmet and looking at the scoreboard with his eerily calm face and blocking out the explosion of sound and movement around him.

 

Jeremy accepts the compliments and excited press of his teammates but moves through it, removing his own helmet and heading to the empty space at Jean’s side. This facet of Jean is not one with whom Jeremy is familiar; it is not the mess of broken pieces Jeremy met two years ago, slicing into anyone who came too close (including himself), and it’s not the Jean Jeremy fell in love with, snarky and scared but also brave and beautiful, the boy with pastel hair and ridiculous crop tops and hand-me-down sweaters with thumb-holes that Jeremy snuck into his closet who slowly allowed himself to rediscover his love of old French films, the stars, and art. This is Jean made untouchable from too much hurt, closed off, but it’s still Jean, and that’s all that’s ever going to matter to Jeremy.

 

“Can I kiss you?” It is absolutely not the right question to ask, but it slips out of his mouth anyway, because some part of him needs to know how deep this front goes, whether he’s welcome in this part of Jean’s recovery. Before, he would have said no, but Jean made that pass and it’s an example of something so unique to them, messing around for  _fun_ on an exy court, kissing there in the middle of the night in a way that felt as blasphemous as defiling a church, and Jeremy thinks— _maybe._

 

Jean’s eyes don’t soften when he turns his head to study Jeremy, but they do brighten to a lighter shade of gray. He nods, once, but doesn’t reach out. He can’t, Jeremy suspects, but that’s okay. Jeremy lets his hand cup Jean’s cheek, thumb caressing the bird etched there in dark ink, and kisses hm.

 

“I am so proud of you,” he tells Jean, when they break apart.

 

Jean swallows, jaw tight, and nods once. He doesn’t say anything, but after a moment his posture relaxes a fraction and he nudges Jeremy in the direction of their team’s on-court celebration. They’re enveloped into the warmth of their community at once, happy hands patting backs and ruffling hair, Laila dropping kisses on everyone’s cheeks and shoulders. It isn’t the most difficult win they’ve secured, it isn’t the best game they’ve played, and it doesn’t win them anything except a spot playing in semi-finals. But it’s the most important game of Jeremy’s career, and he holds tight to Jean’s hand and allows himself a fiercely happy grin with too many teeth and too little joy. It’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally written for a friend not in the fandom, posted on March 10, 2016

**Author's Note:**

> written for @bladespilot on tumblr, originally posted May 7, 2016


End file.
